The Getty

The Islamic State wants the global community to know that there's a new sheriff in town. So it wrecked a museum full of precious sculptures and on Thursday posted video of the vandalism on the Internet. At least, that's what their video wants you to think. The video quickly went viral, but there is reason for some skepticism. Militants inside the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq are shown calmly going about the business of smashing 3,000-year-old statues from the ancient Assyrian empire and other historical dynasties. An on-camera narrator, citing verses from the Koran, confidently explains the destructive iconoclasm against pre-Muslim works of art as a necessary fulfillment of...

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